Tuesday, 8 August 2017

Consumer
forums and registered builders across the state had been demanding that the
MahaRERA issue a circular or direction to stop registration of projects without
any penalty after the deadline

The Maharashtra Real EstateRegulatory Authority
(MahaRERA) on Wednesday decided to slap a penalty of Rs 50,000 each on the 480
ongoing housing projects that registered with it after the July 31 deadline.

"We had allowed the developers to register their
projects, but a decision on the penalty was pending. At a meeting on Wednesday,
we decided to impose penalty on the projects registered after the
deadline," said MahaRERA secretary Vasant Prabhu.

A decision on the penalty to be slapped on projects
registered after August 3 will be taken later, he added.

Consumer forums and registered builders across the state had
been demanding that the MahaRERA issue a circular or direction to stop
registration of projects without any penalty after the deadline.

“We will convene another meeting to finalize the penalty to
be slapped on projects registered on and after August 3,” Prabhu told TOI,
adding that there would not be any deadline extension “as it is against the
law”.

Section 3 of the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) states
that no extension for project registration will be allowed and developers
registering their projects will be penalized under Section 59
(non-registration) of the law. The quantum of penalty can be 10% of the project
cost and even imprisonment, if the builder concerned does not comply with the
order.

Nearly 11,000 projects have been registered with MahaRERA as
the deadline came to an end on July 31. Officials said developers still not
under the RERA ambit can upload their documents on the website. “But each case
will be examined for penalty,” an official said.

The MahaRERA website saw registration of 10,852 ongoing
housing projects as the official deadline came to an end. Pune district topped
the number of registrations with 2,908 (26.8%) applications.

In the meantime, a circular issued by the Union government
stated that Maha-RERA has been entrusted with the additional responsibility of
Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Diu and Daman territories in the absence of RERA
authority in these union territories.

Saturday, 5 August 2017

The central
Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) came into effect on May 1,
2017, exactly a year after it was passed by Parliament

PANAJI: A delay in notifying the Real Estate
(Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) rules for Goa has once again delivered
a setback to consumers who were waiting for RERA to be enforced before buying
homes. The BJPgovernment on Sunday extended the deadline to October for ongoing
projects to register with RERA, even though the central government and other
states have clearly refused to grant an extension.

The central Real Estate (Regulation and Development)
Act (RERA) came into effect on May 1, 2017, exactly a year after it was passed
by Parliament. As per the Act, developers, projects and agents had till July 31
to mandatorily register their projects with the Real Estate Regulatory
Authority.

Any unregistered project would be deemed to be
unauthorized by the regulator, but since the state government has failed to
notify the rules and the authority as on date, the ministry of urban
development has given Goan builders additional time to register with RERA.

TOI had reported on July 15, that the Goa government
was likely to accept the demands from builders and extend the deadline by three
months.

“Builders and promoters can submit their applications
of new and ongoing projects in the prescribed form which can be downloaded from
the website. For ongoing projects, applications for registration will be
accepted upto October 31, 2017, without levy of penalty,” designated Real
Estate Regulatory Authority Sudhir Mahajan said.

The central law, which was enacted to regulate the
real estate sector and secure the interest of consumers, states that no builder
can advertise, market or sell a plot, apartment or building without registering
the real estate project with the Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

A builder has to pay Rs 10 per sqm of area to the
regulator as registration fees for the project.

Goa is one of the few states in the country which has
failed to notify the RERA rules. Officials said, the RERA rules for Goa have
been framed along the lines of the regulations notified by Maharashtra, which
has partially diluted the penalties for non-compliance by builders.

“Notification of the rules will take time. We will try
to do it at the earliest,” Mahajan said to TOI when asked if the rules under
RERA will be notified in the coming days.

The new regulatory authority was meant to end the
uncertainty for home buyers, bring transparency and protect buyers from
unscrupulous builders.

Tuesday, 1 August 2017

Earlier builders’ demand to exclude incomplete projects was turned down by the Centre saying the law was enacted to bring relief to crores of home buyers who had been waiting for their flats for years

NEW DELHI: A bunch of builders have approached two
high courts challenging some of the key provisions in the Real Estate
Regulation Act (RERA) including binging all “ongoing” projects under regulation
and penalties for failure to register such projects. They have pleaded that
these provisions have retrospective effect since the projects were started when
there was no such law and hence it’s illegal.

Earlier builders’ demand to exclude incomplete
projects was turned down by the Centre saying the law was enacted to bring
relief to crores of home buyers who had been waiting for their flats for years,
even after making full payment. According to the law, the mandatory
registration of incomplete and new projects with the regulator will have to be
done by August 1, else the builders face the risk of paying penalties.

The builders have been opposing this provision amid
reports that most of them are cash strapped. Moreover, the law brings
transparency and accountability and property developers have to give fresh timelines
for completion of projects. The timelines will have to be adhered to.

While Builders and Developers Welfare Association has
filed a PIL in Madhya Pradesh High Court, Swapnil Developers has challenged
provisions of RERA in the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court. These cases are
coming up for hearing in the next one week.

Sources in the housing and urban affairs ministry said
RERA is not a law with retrospective effect since it covers all projects, which
have not got completion certificate by May 1, 2017. Secondly, the penal
provisions come to effect only after the law came to existence.

Till now 22 states and seven Union Territories have
got proper or interim regulators and real estate projects can be registered
with them.

Builders have challenged the Centre’s right to enact
the law relating to land, which is a state subject, and how submitting details
of projects to the regulator would amount to infringement of right to privacy.

“The law came into force in March 2016 and there was
enough time to complete the ongoing projects. The law says the builders will
have to give fresh timeline while registering all projects including the
ongoing ones,” a government official said.

He added that the law has been made under the relevant
constitutional provisions of the Concurrent List and the ministry had even
obtained opinion of the law ministry in June 2012. “The RERA does not provide
for matters relating to ‘land’ or ‘local authority’. It aims to regulate the
contractual obligations between the builders and buyers. It focuses on
resolving disputes in the sector,” the official added.

Saturday, 29 July 2017

BHOPAL:
Following complaints raised by a buyer, the Madhya Pradesh Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) issued notice to Gammon India's Shrishti CBD residential project in Bhopal. The
complaint was made last week; and after verification of the charges, a notice
was issued to Gammon.

State RERA member Dinesh Kumar Naik confirmed to TOI that a
notice has been served to Gammon. Among the charges levelled against project
authorities, the complainant, Chandana C Arora alleged issues of payment and
possession. She said: "Gammon Shrishti is supposedly the most exorbitant
housing project in the state and we have willingly paid huge amount of money
for the location and its credibility of government land. Gammon has en-cashed
these two things for maximum monetary benefit. If builder is not delivering or
is looting the buyers' right under the nose of the state government and MP
RERA, it is more of a problem for the above two, rather than for us as
buyers," Arora said.

Arora said that till October 2015, she had paid 90% of the
total sale price with the assurance that possession would be given by mid or
late 2015. However, till date possession has not been given. She added that
others who had invested in the project would soon approach RERA as well.

Gammon authorities, however, have rejected her charges.

The project in question has not been registered with RERA
yet. It is mandatory for a project to register with RERA in 3 months from May 1
- the date RERA came into existence.

Monday, 24 July 2017

The agency
expects RERA, which became effective from May 1 this year, to increase customer
confidence and improve demand prospects over the long term

NEW DELHI: Delayed
implementation of the the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) and transition to the new
regulatory framework is expected to impact the operational performance of real
estate developers during financial year 2017-18, according to rating agency ICRA.

Howeever, the agency expects RERA, which became effective
from May 1 this year, to increase customer confidence and improve demand
prospects over the long term.

“The current transition period of RERA implementation is
expected to be challenging for developers as they need to realign their
business operations to comply with the new regulations," said K
Ravichandran, Senior Vice President and Group Head, ICRA.

Ravichandran also expects the constraints imposed by the Act
to adversely impact the business model of unorganised developers and to bring
some level of consolidation in the industry.

"This will benefit larger developers who have the
resources and financial flexibility to withstand the near term challenges and
scale up execution levels as required," he added.

The provisions of the Act will also significantly impact
developers’ financial profile as it will raise their working capital
requirements and increase reliance on equity or debt financing, according to
the rating agency.

"With the commencement certificate being a pre-requisite
for registration and sale of projects, developers will no longer be able to
part-finance some of the pre-development costs with customer advances, said
Shubham Jain, Vice President and Sector Head, ICRA.

Moreover, Jain feels the restrictions on withdrawal of
customer advances will reduce cash flow fungibility across projects and
increase working capital requirements.

Saturday, 22 July 2017

MahaRera announced the changes on Monday through a circular
issued to encourage developers to speed up the registration of their projects
with the authority

PUNE: Developers can
from September 1 make revisions or corrections in their uploaded documents
following MahaRera's permission and a fee of Rs 5,000 for every change.

MahaRera announced
the changes on Monday through a circular issued to encourage developers to
speed up the registration of their projects with the authority.

The new circular
comes a relief for the developers, who had repeatedly said that they should be
allowed to correct the documents uploaded and cleared by MahaRERA. The earlier
rules did not allow them to make any such revisions and corrections.

With MahaRERA
estimating that there are over 10,000 ongoing projects in the state, there was
less than 5% registration by developers till July 15.

"Till Wednesday,
we saw 898 developers registering with us. We hope that the registration with
MahaRERA for the ongoing projects will speed up after the new circular,"
MahaRERA secretary Vasant Prabhu said.

He added that with
every revision or correction, they would have to pay a fine as stated in the
circular put up on the website. Besides the correction clause, the circular
also mentions project detail updates within three months from registration.

Credai Maharashtra
president Shantilal Kataria said the new circular would encourage the
developers to upload their documents sooner. "In the last two days, more
than 400 projects have been registered. We are urging all developers to
register with MahaRERA as soon as possible," he said.

A developer, who did
not want to be named, said the scope to make revisions or corrections was a
long-pending demand of the developers. 'They should have done it a month ago.
It would have made the builders feel confident to register their projects
earlier," he said.